iCloud Documents Sync (You have to be kidding me)

[LinuxHack3r]

I finally got around to buying Pages for my iPhone (finally found a legitimate use for it). This made me decide to attempt to setup the document sync for iCloud. Now, I've been using Dropbox for years, and I have still very satisfied.

It took me a long time to figure out how exactly to access the documents on my MBP. I tried looking in many places in Finder. I tried looking for a special "repository" in Pages. I tried many things.

When I finally found it, I was very upset. I feel Apple skimped us on this end of iCloud. It should either sync to your documents folder (much like dropbox), or a "repository" within each iWork program would at least be functional as long as you have internet access.

I might as well be plugging the iPhone to my MBP with a cable in the time it takes (from the start) to open Safari, go to iCloud, and then DRAG the file I just updated back to the iCloud server. It is very beautiful on the iOS. And I suppose that this small detail explains it all. Apple would love to eliminate OSX altogether and have a bunch of tablets and I suppose touchscreen iMacs.

Does anyone else feel they skimped us? Perhaps I am missing something!?!?

 

[Intell]

Did you look in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder for your files?

 

[NMF]

Did you look in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder for your files?

What? It's well known that you have to manually upload/download your files via iCloud.com for use on Mac.

I'm with you OP, it's kind of ridiculous how they marketed iCloud as something that keeps our documents synced when it doesn't sync with the most important device for documents, your Mac. I wish I could drop it completely and switch back to Dropbox, but I like the convenience of just opening Pages on my iPad and having the document there ready to go. I guess I prefer the hassle of uploading to iCloud.com to having to open the Dropbox app every time on my mobile devices. Both solutions are bogus though, and shouldn't be necessary.

I actually called Apple about this and spoke to like 5 different people as I worked up the chain. I honestly thought I was doing something wrong, it never dawned on me that things were working as intended. I couldn't believe it when I finally figured it out. The Super Manager (or whatever her title was) told me to just use Dropbox instead of iCloud, that's what she does. Massive fail on Apple's part.

 

[Intell]

blah

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111029203029574

 

[NMF]

You're joking, right? That's a nice shady method of uploading something to iCloud, but what happens after I open it on my iPad, change something, and come back to my Mac? Oh, I can't open the file anymore, I still need to visit iCloud.com and download the Mac-compatible version. Worthless "workaround."

 

[tigress666]

Are you guys serious?! That is a serious fail if true! I thought the whole point was that you could do small changes on your iphone/ipad and it would be effectively changed on your mac!

That makes it completely useless if you do have to drag and drop to actually synch the document!

That is really disappointing. I thought that was the neatest part of how I thought icloud worked (being able to work on your documents anywhere and having them autosynched. It had me considering buying Pages for my Mac and iphone just for that. Glad I read this first).

And yeah, Drop box is a helluva lot more effective than that.

 

[Intell]

You're joking, right? That's a nice shady method of uploading something to iCloud, but what happens after I open it on my iPad, change something, and come back to my Mac? Oh, I can't open the file anymore, I still need to visit iCloud.com and download the Mac-compatible version. Worthless "workaround."

Works very well for me when changing files in both directions.

 

[Shawnpk]

iCloud support is supposed to be included in the next version of iWork.

 

[NMF]

Works very well for me when changing files in both directions.

No it doesn't. The iWork iOS apps use a different format than the Mac apps, so when you open them on iOS they are no longer compatible on Mac. You have to download the document via iCloud.com to "convert" it (this happens in the background) to a format that pages.app can open. There is no possible way to open the iPad file using pages.app for OSX without doing this.

Are you guys serious?! That is a serious fail if true! I thought the whole point was that you could do small changes on your iphone/ipad and it would be effectively changed on your mac!

Yeah, so did everyone else.

iCloud support is supposed to be included in the next version of iWork.

When is that supposed to be released?

 

[LinuxHack3r]

iCloud support is supposed to be included in the next version of iWork.

Which means what everyone?

Everyone's favorite word!

Money!

 

[Intell]

No it doesn't. The iWork iOS apps use a different format than the Mac apps, so when you open them on iOS they are no longer compatible on Mac. You have to download the document via iCloud.com to "convert" it (this happens in the background) to a format that pages.app can open. There is no possible way to open the iPad file using pages.app for OSX without doing this.

Like I said, works fine for me. I fail to see what's so different about the iOS iWork suite and the Mac suite. I transfer my files via iWork, iTunes, and manually via SFTP. My Mac can read and alter the iOS files with no problem, as can my iOS versions with Mac documents.

 

[Shawnpk]

When is that supposed to be released?

Well, it was called iWork '11, so I would have guessed sometime in 2011. Although I haven't heard about it much lately.

 

[NMF]

Like I said, works fine for me.

No it doesn't. You don't have a special, magical Mac. When you open a file in iOS Pages it converts it to its own version (basically stripping away the Mac-exclusive features). If you use the method you linked to above, you'll only have a preview of the file in your Mobile Documents folder. To edit the file again on your Mac, you have to download from iCloud.

These are facts, it's not really a matter of debate.

 

[Intell]

Matter of fact is, it works for me and I just tried it. This fact is undeniable, as I drag the newly appeared iCloud file from the Mobile Docs folder onto my Pages icon in the Dock and it opens it and allows me to edit it. Once I click save, the document's changes appear on my iPhone. I can then continue to make changes to the same file using either iOS or Mac Pages. This is how it works for me.

 

[Zcott]

That doesn't work for Numbers files. Meaning, it's a hack, and not the official solution. Expect an answer with an iWork update (which really should be here by now...)

 

[tigress666]

So does this mean that we eventually will be able to get the Cloud functionality the way Steve described it back in the keynote once they release a new iWork?

Does that also mean I should wait to buy Pages (Word as usual is seriously pissing me off with random bug but now that I think about it I can't remember what small feature I liked about Word over Pages so right now considering buying Pages). Or if I bought it now would I get the update that would fix the Cloud synching?

 

[George Knighton]

Does anyone else feel they skimped us? Perhaps I am missing something!?!?

Yes, a little bit.

With the MobileME paid subscription service, you'd have folders that you set up yourself to sync the way that you wanted (like Dropbox) and these documents and folders were available to you across the iOS and OSX platforms on all machines.

The free iCloud service is heavily skewed toward iOS users and assumes that you only want to be able to access a few documents.

Personally, I want to access a great variety of documents of various sizes while I am in the field with either a MacBook Pro or iPad, or in my office with the iMac, or in an emergency or for a quick look on the iPhone.

The free iCloud service does *not* provide an equivalent service, and I feel that if they want us all on iCloud then they need to do a better job of it than Google Documents, at least as good a job as MobileME did with the "iDisk" application that we were all using to access the virtual disk.

In their defense, I doubt that the other shoe's dropped yet. They're likely working on a paid version of iCloud with the same functionality across platforms, and an easy way to create folders and sort large numbers of files.

 

[George Knighton]

Did you look in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder for your files?

I wonder why I do not seem to have any such folder.

 

[Night Spring]

I wonder why I do not seem to have any such folder.

1. I believe if you have Lion, ~Library folder is hidden by default, and you have to use a Terminal command, or a Lion tweak utility, to unhide it. And no, I don't remember offhand what the command is.

2. The Mobile Documents folder is only created when you turn on iCloud data sharing from the iCloud settings panel.

 

[wackymacky]

Did you look in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder for your files?

What? It's well known that you have to manually upload/download your files via iCloud.com for use on Mac.
.

It is where yhe files are stored locally on your computer, though you need to chance the packets extention from the iOS one if you want to open in in OSX.

I wonder why I do not seem to have any such folder.

it is in the USERS library folder, which in Lion, but not previously, is hidden by default as Apple doesn't want people screwing with things, tehn complaining their system is bust.

1. I believe if you have Lion, ~Library folder is hidden by default, and you have to use a Terminal command, or a Lion tweak utility, to unhide it. And no, I don't remember offhand what the command is.

2. The Mobile Documents folder is only created when you turn on iCloud data sharing from the iCloud settings panel.

You can access your users library folder from the desktop without a hack or terminal:

go> go to folder ( shift command G) and enter ~/Library

If you have iOS iWork documents in iCloud they will be in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder

Some of my other iOS apps (e.g. GoodReader) appear to be syncing their cloud dater here too!

 

[Carl Sagan]

Yup this sucks and is another reason why I haven't bothered with iCloud...

 

[kurosov]

This is one area where apple have been slower than other dev's with their own technology. Mac app's do have support for iCloud integration but apple have yet to add said support to the desktop version of iWork.

I do most of my writing on iA Writer then pull into pages for formatting if needed, iA just added support for iCloud between their desktop and iPad applications which works great.

iClouds document syncing is really a great feature that for some reason devs seem to be slow in implementing, I'd have thought game devs would be the first to jump onto it as a way on managing game saves but so far there are very few that do.

 

[kas23]

Every 1-2 years Apple releases a product/feature that is abysmal and horribly implemented. Their home runs (iPod, iPad, iPhone) usually outshine the MobileMes, iAds, and Pings. I understand what Apple was trying to do, but they over thought themselves in their attempt to make things simple. In taking away the basic control of the end-user, they actually made it more confusing. I think in 1-2 years, we will look back at the initial implementation of iCloud and realize how bad and convoluted it was.

For me, I'm getting out of the online storage services and setting up my own NAS server. Having 2-5 gb of online storage is too little and the lowest paid storage amount is too much money and I don't want a new bill to pay. With an NAS, I'll get all the storage I'll ever need and all in one centralized area.

 

[NMF]

With an NAS, I'll get all the storage I'll ever need and all in one centralized area.

Yeah, for the price of a new computer...

I don't need that much storage. I just want my documents to sync.

 

[kas23]

Yeah, for the price of a new computer...

I don't need that much storage. I just want my documents to sync.

Not necessarily. You'd be surprised. I just picked up a Synology DS212j for $219.99. That, plus HDDs, you can get one up and running for less than $400. Now, there is supposedly a huge shortage of HDDs in the world right now, so prices are through the roof, but you can normally pick up a good 1TB HDD for about $60. That means, under normal world circumstances, you can get one up and running for less than $350...and you'll never have to worry about iCloud/Dropbox/new storage of the month problems and prices. Oh, yeah, and it just works.

I hear you though. You'd think asking Apple to just store your documents for easy retrieval off the web would be a small task. But, no. For some reason that tried to be all cute and outsmart everyone by restricting such an easy, even-your-grandma-can-do-it feature.